National Service Blog

Seventeen percent of 16- to 24-year-olds in the United States (6.7 million young adults) are “opportunity youth” who are not attending school, not working, and have no credential beyond high school. To help these youth transition successfully to post-secondary education and productive employment, 2010 Social Innovation Fund grantee New Profit implemented the Pathways Fund. Focused on youth ages 12 to 24, the Pathways Fund aims to increase high school graduation and GED attainment, increase college enrollment, increase college credit accumulation rates, and help youth achieve living-wage employment.

New Profit’s six subgrantees are experienced providers in these areas and have a broad geographic reach, with locations in 22 states and 30 urban areas:

I started Birthday Wish with five of my friends in the winter of our freshman year of high school(2006). We started it after Youth Venture, an organization that helps teenagers make a difference in the community by granting seed-money to start non-profits, came to our school looking for motivated teens.

We have a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) at Cedarhill Estates Mobile Home Park at Fullerton, CA. About 30 people took the CERT training course and received a certificate of completion in 2006. We have taken various additional classes such as defibrillator training, CPR and basic first aid.
Our community is a limited access community with just one way in and out. We do have an emergency gate separating our community with a community to the north of us that remains locked. In the event of an emergency this gate will be unlocked.

Hindu Americans are responding to President Obama’s call to the United We Serve initiative through various seva (service) projects. The Hindu American Seva Charities (HASC) has been established as a community space to bring together seva projects across the country and showcase them accordingly. The ultimate goal is to reach 1,001 seva projects by September 11. Numerous temples and individuals have joined forces in the name of seva.

When school children are surrounded by dingy walls marred by dirty hand prints, countless scuff marks, and traces of pencils and markers, what does it say? At Balboa Elementary in San Diego, it says more than just that 700 elementary age students go to school here, year round. It also speaks to the many ways that budget cuts have taken their toll on the school environment.

I started interning with New Jersey Community Water Watch , which is a program ran by AmeriCorps and NJPIRG in a joint project. The program works by informing community members and students and encouraging them to be active stewards of their local water ways. The program is focusing on the water problem that New Jersey faces, which is that we have the worst water quality in the nation.

I have served the community of Bearden, OK as a volunteer fire fighter since 1993. It's a small town of a few hundred people in rural America. In 1994, I became the fire chief of the Bearden Volunteer Fire Department. Being a volunteer fire fighter, I am on the clock 24/7; whenever my pager goes off, I drop everything to respond and help someone in need.

For three weeks, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has been collecting men's and women's business attire in an agency-wide effort to donate clothes to unemployed Americans seeking to re-join the workforce. This collection has been going on at both the Washington, DC headquarters and local field offices across the country.

On July 3, Todd and Michelle Collins had reason to celebrate. After more than seven long months of waiting, they got to move back into their Columbia home. When a house fire displaced the Collins family from their home in December, the Red Cross was there to help them get back on their feet.

Target is proud to be a part of United We Serve. In conjunction with Education Week, Target Property Development team members are putting pencil to paper this week and beginning the design phase for its School Library Makeover program.